[Music] Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. I’m Rhett. And this week at the round table of dim lighting. Two guys have t-shirts with nothing on them. Mine is black and my best friends is tan. We didn’t work this out ahead of time. This kind of thing just happens when you are in the same line on the same page. We’re not gonna get mad. We’re not gonna rage. We’re just going to cough and we’re just going to talk. We’re going to answer some questions. We’re going to have some sessions of some answers. And we’re going I just took an Advil for my headache. And my t-shirt is still tan as can be. Yeah. His is so black that it looks like his torso is not even there. But that’s okay cuz his head is floating. I’m like magician. Like a magician. A new age magician who only wears a black t-shirt. Yeah. Or an approachable pastor. You think like an approachal p approachional pastor every time. Let me just let me just pick a little bone here. Uh, every time I talk about anything passionately or seriously, you know what I get? You know what I get? I get low back. I get people telling me pastor energy. Oh, really? I’m like, I was raised in the church. What can I say? Pastor energy. Raised in the church. Whenever you care about something. Yeah. I’m not trying to do that. Maybe I missed my calling. I think I’m feeling the relief of pain. I was trying to cheer you up because we got ready to do this and you know we’ve had a long day. We we we’ve we’ve had we shot another video. We we off site. It was a special video. I think it’s out. Mhm. It’s out. It will have been out this morning. We filmed we went uh we planned our funerals. We picked out our freaking caskets and our urns like all of this stuff. Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which we documented the process. Great cemetery. You know, I don’t rank cemeteries typically, but it’s number one. But it’s number one in our hearts. It’s also the coolest cemetery to just walk around. It’s crazy the stuff they have on the Been there a few times. We went to uh movies, concerts. We talked about it on the show. We went to the Lord Huron concert there in with the backdrop of all the mausoleiums and whatnot. And then you can watch I watched the Adams Family Values movie there a couple of Halloweens ago. I watched seven there in the graveyard. So it’s um it’s a cool spot and dead people are buried there and you can go and you can mourn. But there’s still 13,000 Mickey Rooney available spots. Bert Reynolds. Did you know that? That’s a lot. Paul Ruben’s added more spots. There’s places that they haven’t buried anybody. And then they are there’s mausoleiums. They just they just built this mausoleum, a high-rise. That’s a that’s the world the the US the tallest mausoleum in the US. Super cool. And it’s incredible. And we were on top of it. You see the Hollywood sign. It’s beautiful. And they’re going to build it. I don’t know if I should say this. They’re going to build another one. Huh? You think they told us stuff that we can’t repeat? Like we The camera wasn’t rolling when we said that. Oh. When they said that. Anyway, shout out to Jasmine who is uh the coolest mortician we’ve ever met. The coolest mortician we ever met except for our first girlfriend’s parent. Mom and dad. Yeah. Uh the So anyway, um it was forformational purposes, but also comedic purposes. We didn’t actually sign anything or like spend money, but I I learned a lot of things like you can get a casket that is made completely out of mushrooms. They have it there. Total mushroom casket and then you just get buried. It is $3,000 and it gets there’s like a a bed of moss that your body lays on naked on moss. It’s beautiful. It’s really cool. So, I really like that idea. Um, after we did that, because we shouldn’t tell them everything. You got to go watch it because this is a It’s a really good one. After we did that, we stopped. Well, you It’s on It’s an exclusive special over on the Mythical Society. Go to mythicalsocciety.com if you’re a secondderee member. I don’t even know. Don’t say things that you don’t really know. If there’s something you get to see most of something more, you get more if you’re obligated are eligible. While we were there, we were talking to Damian uh who was a production assistant on the project today on the video today and uh he said something about jerk chicken like I get some jerk chicken. Like what the jerk chicken? I love jerk chicken. He’s like yeah the taste of the Caribbean restaurant is right around the corner right right next to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. And he’s got a he said, “I have friends who I don’t know if he said they are Jamaican or they just really know Jamaican food, but it was one of two places in LA that has the best Jamaican food.” So, we were like, “We’re right here.” And and let me just say, we walked over there, we knew that Jenna already had, you know, lunches like that, you know, they were ordered and with a plastic lid, had our names on them and they were ready. You know, I already, you know, I always have food for you. We don’t even have to make a decision. like satiated. We know we’re going to have a a lunch with a plastic lid on it cuz Jenna is going to see to that. And we’re not complaining. We thank you for that. But we had to have a taste of the Caribbean. Jerk’s chicken just down the road. I call it jerks chicken. Yeah, jerk. Hey, it was when we were eating it. Let me tell you right now. Well, we get there and we’re like, we walk in the front door and it’s a ghost town. I was like, it looks closed, but the door opened. So, we went inside. Not a soul inside. music playing, reggae music playing, TV’s going boom boom boom boom, but there was a couple of hello, hello, no response, nothing. I’m cuz not we’re not talking about no patrons. We’re talking about no employees. Nobody was there. You know that place is going to be good though. If that if that’s the case, well, somebody needs to be there to make it chilling. But eventually, somebody decided they would return to the to the counter. And uh she was like, “Oh, surprised.” It seemed that somebody was there. and we sat down like it’s one o’clock. We had a great meal of jerk chicken and then uh roti which is like the Jamaican curry. We And you know what? I I season stuff up. I I throw a little plantain order in there as well. Yeah. And I you know what I ended up doing? Eating all of it. I got the hot sauce that they sell there and got a bottle and took it home with me. I didn’t steal it. I added it to the bill. Well, we pay for that with the company card, so I get some of that whenever I want it. You come and get it, Saka. Here’s the thing. I didn’t love the sauce. I did. I tried it. The hot sauce was It has It has that scot the scotch bonnet peppers in it and the mango. We sat across the Caribbean taste and we we both shared both dishes. We did. We made a complete mess on the table. Of the table. Spilled multiple things. Tipped. Well, I don’t know what that the the tortill like thing that roti comes in. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s like a lentilized thing, but yeah, I flaky. Not it’s it was awesome. And I think the one employee who was doing everything it seems. She was like she’s super nice and she was I think she tried to make it seem like she wasn’t the one back there cooking it. She was like, “Where are y’all from?” And you know, what part of town? And then she was like, “Well, you know, if you come back, you come back a little bit later. That’s when the crowd’s here. Like, oh, okay. So, apparently it’s a late night crowd. She’s like, people watch the TVs and sports and jerk chicken. I’m burping up jerk chicken right now as I’m talking about it. Okay, blow it on me. Let me let me get another taste. Will you see it like that? Oh, man. I don’t want to hear that from anybody. It was It was good though. I don’t even want to hear that from a beautiful woman. I don’t want to hear that from anybody. It was good though, wasn’t it? I And the jerk chicken had a side. The sides were um beans and rice. Rice and beans mixed together. Beans and rice. And I would say rice and beans. Much more rice and beans. I’m just saying it the way they say it. Beans and rice. And then it was a a cabbage vegetable medley. It was cabbage, which I’m all for that. I just haven’t been getting enough taste of the Caribbean. But can I just I’ll I will complain for a moment. There’s too many bones in the meat. I’m spitting out bones left and right. I knew this would happen. The first time we ate roti was when we went to Trinidad. We had goat rot and and it had bones in it. So many bones. We’re like, man, I want to just eat. I want I want to just take the meatry, migrate it to the rice and beans, and just turn the shovel on. You can’t do that with the bones. I know it makes it taste better, but it makes it harder to eat. The thing that I’ve figured out how to do was to bite lightly, which is hard for me. You know, how aggressively I chew, but I was biting lightly. And when I’d hit a bone, I just send it to the front. And you were doing great. I was watching you. Yeah. I didn’t swallow a bone or any other parts that I had to get out of my mouth. I we discussed that we thought that the bones contributed to the taste of it as it was stewed for long periods of time. It does 1,000%. So you’re complaining, but we kind of think that it was a good I I had this desire. They should have removed it before and they just it was like straight with breast of chicken and a little bit of a wing and they just likeam and just chopped it in half. Yeah. And then the stewed chicken is just a piece of chicken, just like a part of the chicken just kind of just stewed in there. I told you that I want to make um jerk chicken pasta as I I have like a certain number of dishes that I like to make at scale to like give to other people. Not a lot of people a lot of people don’t like jerk chicken, so I don’t know. But I have this idea for like a jerk chicken pasta that I want to perfect. Okay. But I know that I want to do the white boy version of it because I want it to just be chicken that has no bones in it that I can just shovel into my mouth and not worry about the dainty. I think you need to pick the bones out after you’ve made it though because it’s crucial. So I I I stew the chicken in the spices and do it all that that way. And then I take the jerk chicken off of the bones and sort of shred it and then mix it with the pasta. You make a pile of bones, which appropriately enough is what happens when you get cremated. Back to that, we learned that the the thing that they send you is a smoothied version of bones. It’s ashes plus bones. It’s not ashes. It’s just bones. They they remove delicately remove the bone remains after incinerating the entire piece. So, and then they take those bone remains and they they smoothie put them in a bone grinder. Yeah. And that’s what you got anyway. Uh anyway, and then that was awesome. And then we and then we had meetings and then and now we’re here. I mean, end of the day. This is an end of the day thing. So, I thought I’d sing you a little song about our t-shirts and see if it perk you up a little bit. And then you you took it you took it right from me and you went and you sang about your shirt. Full full circle, man. We’re backing down. That’s what I was hoping would happen. We’re back at that. So now if we want to cut all of that out because it’s was just a warm up. None of that counts. This this is where the podcast episode can really start singing about t-shirts. Anybody else got a headache? Let’s hear a question. Hey guys, uh it’s Al from Boston and I was just listening to uh you know I’m I’m a little behind on the ear biscuits, but I was just listening to uh Rhett talking about how he was just how he was in Boston and uh it’s funny uh I think the most Boston thing uh happened to me while I was listening to that where you I got defensive before he said anything. I was like I was like what the hell is this dude going to talk about Boston? talk about Boston and then you were talking about how you like Boston and I was like what he likes this piece of city. So I think uh I don’t know it just kind of dawned on me. I was like you know that’s probably the most Boston thing that could ever happen. You’re like I love this city but it also sucks. Uh but yeah uh see you. That wow that’s good. And that’s I love his accent. That was real. That’s a real That’s a real person. He had to have a negative take regardless of the outcome. That was He knew that he had to stick to that. So Boston, I love that. See, that’s one of the things that make makes Boston so great, the negativity from the Bostononians. Did you pick up on some of that? No. When I was there on July 4th, it was all tourists all the time. I think all the locals were like, “Hell no, we’re not going to be a part of this.” Okay. Um, but I’m sure but the pe you know the people in the restaurants working the restaurants they were lovely so I did run into some locals there but no and no one was rude. No one was rude. Okay, good. Right now there is a talented person out there who could take your company or your project to the next level. The question is are they going to find your job post or your competitors? 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Do it the right way with Indeed. Uh just want to acknowledge the voicemails are pouring in giving support to Jenna for her knee. Um Jenna, you’re having surgery in next Wednesday. Just Yeah. In a week. In about a week. Yeah. Yeah. In about a week, you’re having the surgery. It’s happening. And then they’re saying that the recovery is how long? Uh, well, total at least nine months. Nine. But you’re g How long till you walk? I will probably be able to put weight on it same day. Okay. But I’ll be in one of those uh like braces where my knee has to stay straightened like inflatable almost like straighten it out. Inflatable brace. I don’t know what the brace looks like yet, but I know that they’re good. Give me one. Okay. That’s not the one I have now that I bought off of line for like $15 off of line. I’m not going to I’m not going to give a specific place. How long till you can kick us in the ass again? Um, we’re going to run wild. I would have crutches. I could hit you with the crutches. She’s going to goose us with the crutches. Um, y’all walking too fast. No. No opportunity to like run hog wild. Jenna’s going to use the crutch on us. Okay. But yeah, play some of those voicemails where everyone’s just really telling Jenna how much they care about her. I do have I do have an ACL one. That would be interesting. Oh, really? Yeah. And a lot of them are like super I was I totally put Jamie on the spot because No, but I have I do have I was basically making a joke that no one did that. Jenna, I’m about to say but lots of people. I will say this for the ear biscuit voicemail levers. Um, short and succinct would be great. Okay. Because there was a few that were like three to five minutes. Yeah, people are really giving me advice. Yeah, it’s But there is one. We You feel the love, right? Even though we are not choosing to play any of that because they’re way too long and gushing. I I feel the love. Yeah. Um Jamie’s sending them to me so I can still listen to all of them personally. So good. Cuz I I really sent in a voicemail. I if they weren’t about me will have heard it before my surgery and it is already appreciated. Yeah. Yeah. So don’t don’t even look. Okay. But there is one there is one if I find at the like in between that is quite it’s short enough and it’s interesting. Okay. Is it the one you prefaced to me earlier? Yeah. Okay. Go. That is a good note though. I don’t think we’ve ever made that note. Yeah. But I think people have maybe taken if it’s long and meandering you, you know, they don’t get that long when we don’t edit these down. It’s like, you know, right. Okay. So, as you’re found Oh, you Oh, here we go. Just long enough. Good work. Just long enough. Okay. Um, this is great. Hi, this is Sydney. Um, I heard that Jenna Torquer ACL. Um, that’s terrible. So, sorry that happened to you, Jenna. Um, and I personally don’t have any experience with this, um, for myself, but my dog actually tore both of his ACL’s. Um, and, uh, what really was beneficial for him and his recovery was a very nice crate. Um, you know, with a lot of blankets. Um, so I would recommend getting one of those. You might need like a high impact one because you kind of seem like a biter. Someone uh, you know, might tear up their enclosure. Um, you know, and if you’re going to be pretty anxious uh with all that crate rest, I would recommend um some Trazzadone um from your vet. I I mean your doctor. Um and yeah, that’s that’s pretty much all that I did for my dog. Um he is doing great now. Um and he runs as fast as he used to. Um so yeah, hopefully, you know, if you do all those things, uh you will be able to get back on your feet. Thanks, guys. Bye. Okay, she’s a biter. She I am a biter. Watch out for the chompers. I wouldn’t have I mean I wouldn’t have known that a dog could break its ACL’s. Although of course it can because it’s a mammal that’s got them. But um Jacob’s dog, that’s right, tore our COO. Um poor Riley. Riley. Riley tore her ACL. I didn’t know it was an ACL. something like a knee replacement or something. Yeah, I know. Jacob had Oh, yeah. Jacob for his ACL. I was like, are you were taking him with his dog? No, the dog. The dog. I swear I This happened. There was a big surgery on one and then on the other leg. Yeah. Uh-huh. I knew something with her leg. I didn’t know what it was, but Okay. Uh but yeah, I I actually have been um making sure my crate is exactly how I want it so that uh I don’t go absolutely insane and the doctor will give me some good medicine so I don’t lose my mind uh being. But yeah, I’ve been nesting. I’ve been making my home very uh uh friendly to my needs. to hunkering down. Hunkering down and elevating adding adding a chair in the shower, you know, the good stuff. Okay, so we’ll keep you posted. Thanks for um all your support for encouragement for Jenna because uh you know, of course we’re doing that, too. But you know, it it means diff it means something different coming from you. Yeah. Maybe I’ll send another um uh voice memo to you all like the last time I had surgery. Yeah. And you won’t save it again. Little dumpy. None of us will save it again. Yeah, this time. This time. We’ll save it this time. All right, Liz here. Another one. Hey, Red and Link. Uh, this is Nick calling from Los Angeles, California. Um, so I was wondering if you guys could help me out with something. I’m a runner and I usually listen to your podcast right when it comes out first thing Monday morning. And that also happens to be when I’m doing one of my hardest running workouts of the week. And so I was wondering if you guys could maybe give me your best motivational speech to help me through my next run and also maybe talk a little bit more broadly about some of the things that motivate you guys to do what you guys do. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Okay. Ready? Yeah. Three, two, one. I don’t know. I don’t get it, man. I don’t understand what you’re doing when you’re running, man. I just I it’s never been something that I’ve done. I am almost jealous of you that you’re doing it right now. It’s completely foreign to me. You running is like me going to space. I just, you know, I don’t really have a point of reference for it. And if I’m going to do it, I better be drunk. Is this turning into a good mythical evening promotion? Yes. Hold on. You can’t do that. October 23rd. put on Nick’s motivational speech is going to be ad. Yes. Make sure Nick, you buy a ticket to go mythical evening on October 23rd. It starts at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Pacific. It’s completely un unpredictable what’s going to happen, just like running because anything can happen when you’re running. Nick, all right, we can start over. I’m sorry, Nick. I turned it into an ad. We’ll start over. Nick, it’s Rhett. Nick, it’s Rhett. All right, start over. Three, two, one. Nick, take everything that my friend just said um and forget about it for a moment. I mean, we do want you to be a part of Good Mythical Evening, but that’s not really what this is about. This is about you. 3 2 1 go. This is about you. This is about the journey ahead of you. You are running in Los Angeles. The reality is if you slow down right now, something bad could happen to you. I don’t know what kind of I don’t know what part of town you’re in, but these days it could happen anywhere. And I’m just saying just like you need to keep running. You need to We are We should be almost at a sprint at this point. You should be looking over You should be looking over both shoulders. You got to keep We got We got wildlife we got to worry about. We got unsavory characters we might have to worry about. You got to We want you to stay strong. Do not stop. No matter how bad the cramps get, do not stop and bend over and try to catch your breath because that, Nick, is when you are vulnerable. Mhm. Don’t pull your pants down. Is that what you’re getting at? Hey, one foot in front of the other. Look, keep your eyes to the horizon. That way you won’t get seasick, you know. Um. Uhhuh. Uh-huh. What’s that thing? Shin splints, enjoy it. Side cramps, embrace it. Eyes watering, uncontrollable weeping, it’s all part of it. Nick, if the 78year-old version of yourself could look back right now, snap his fingers, and suddenly enter into your young, healthy body that is running the mean streets of Los Angeles, he would be so happy. He would say, “I’m going to take a deep breath of this smog and I’m going to be grateful for it, okay? And I’m going to keep running and like look, feel how it feels. I mean, it hurts a little bit, but it’s a good hurt.” And I the fact that I can do this right now, your nipples chafing against your the rash that is forming in between my legs. This is what my older self would want for me right now. And I’m doing it. I’m doing it. Don’t look over your shoulder. Keep going. Go. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I’m setting the pace to go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Stop. Nope, don’t stop. Just kidding. Okay, Nick, I hope that did something for you. Yeah. Um, how did you you do some I don’t want to talk about running. Yeah, but you you do some biking. You do some biking and you have to stay motivated, right? You got to make sure your bike is charged. You got to make sure your bike has a charge. I’m not talking about So you can keep going my ebike publicly because Oh, you’re not? Uh, well, too late. I did. It’s a little bit of shame. A little bit of shame there. You haven’t talked about this publicly. No. Well, cuz I don’t want my biking buddy to find out. We haven’t biked together in like over a year. You His name is Nick as well. Yeah. Hold on. What if that was him? Didn’t sound like him. No, it wasn’t him. Hold on. You haven’t told I haven’t about your ebike. I haven’t been able to tell him. Well, Nick, no. Don’t you do it. You know who you are. Don’t you do it. I just haven’t. I’ve been too embarrassed. Nick, you know who you are. Links biking buddy. We talked about not doing it before turning like 60 or maybe 50 or something. Well, you you’re pretty close. You’re telling me you round it up. I definitely round it up. Yeah. Yeah, but that keeps you motivated, right? Because you just I mean, you tell me all the I mean, the thing is is that I don’t ride I mean, I know how to ride a bike, but I do not regularly ride a bike. But you tell me about all the places you go, and I’m just like, it’s awesome. That seems like a better deal than to have to pedal yourself there. Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s a mountaintop experience, literally. But isn’t it’s you’re still pedaling there there is but is there ever a moment and you’re like I need to stay motivated or you like that’s out of the equation. Okay. So okay well what do you do that requires motivation? Let’s I just find that and then tell us why you need how you say motivated. Why why is that a question? He asked the question. You didn’t you don’t listen man. Oh the second part of the question. Yeah. I was choosing to ignore. Yeah. Well, I I’m not I heard both questions and I’m answering the second one. What do we choose? How do we stay motivated? What do you do? Um I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t stay motivated, Nick. That’s the answer. We do not We are not motivated. I’m not I’m rarely un like extremely unmotivated. I’m just kind of like very even kill when it comes to motivation. I’m just vaded, you know? I’m not more or less vaded. You’re the right amount of evaded. I’m I’m just just evenly vaded. I like it’s kind of like autopilot. I think the that’s a almost a really good joke. My rewrite of that would be I’m not motivated, I’m tivated. Yeah. Because I’m not motivated. I’m not motivated. I’m just I’m just the t-shirt. Yeah, that’s the t-shirt. I’m not mo or less debated. I’m just debated. Yeah. Yeah. You know, make that work in the edit. I think you had to say the t-shirt would say I’m not motivated. I’m not less deivated because you have to seem motivated all together because then people won’t know what if you say I’m not mo or less deated. Be like what the hell language is this guy talking? Um, but really I don’t, you know, I think that, uh, I just I I fall back on routine. I think that’s my answer. I don’t do a whole lot where I I don’t do a whole lot where I have to like dig super deep to keep going because most everything I work hard, but it’s almost always something I want to be doing. We’re blessed in that way. Hashtag. Um, but I do like cardio workouts where I’m like I don’t want to keep doing this, but I I watch a YouTube video at the same time about something completely unrelated. That’s how I stay motivated. You watch talking head YouTube videos while working out. If I start listening to music, I get less deated. H my thing is it’s interesting. It’s like because music while I’m working out feels like I’m trying to psych myself into like energy that’s not actually there. Like yes, yes, yes. And I’m like I get bored really quickly with that happening in my brain. Okay. And I would just much rather listen to someone talk about some concept and just be like separate from that happening. My body is just doing something. Uhhuh. Your brain is your brain is somewhere else. My brain is somewhere else. And so my brain if if I’m listening to music, you know what my brain starts thinking about? Damn, this is hard. I got to listen to that beat to keep going. It’s like that. I don’t like that. I want to be distracted from the pain and just have it set in. I I guess I understand that. Like if I was doing a long climb on a a manual mountain bike, you know, which I still try to do occasionally, but maybe only once since I’ve got my other bike. I You still have your other bike? I’ll listen to a podcast. If it’s like a 45minute climb, I’ll listen to a podcast on the way up and then when I turn around to come back down, I switch to music. Oh, music on the way down. Music on the way down. So interesting. podcast on the way up because I’m just grinding away in granny gear and I like having a distra distraction. So So same same principle. So it is a similar principle but like working out in your garage listening to a podcast it feels a little strange. I wonder how many people listen to podcast when they go to the gym. Oh I think it’s probably a lot at this point. Like I don’t know what the percentage breakdown is, but I think if you were popping people’s ear earbuds off at Equinox. Yeah. I think it’s 5050. I mean, talk versus music. Got our boy Nick. Is he still running to us? Turn. You’re still running, Nick. Keep running. Yeah, he’s still running. Keep running. We’re right behind you. Yeah. So, I mean, perfect example. Yeah. The whole this whole thing is premised on the fact that Nick listens to this podcast while running. Well, there’s your answer, Nick. Next. Hey Red and Link, this is Victor calling back. Um, Red, I really appreciate you accepting my apology. Hold on. Hold on. Sticking up for me. Can you You got to refresh our memory. Um, so we had a caller named Victor who was apologizing to Rhett about the taking the picture uh on the beach. The beach man. the beach man when he had co now followed up on your acceptance of said apology. I love this. Now we’re in a conversation. Okay, so roll that back a little bit. Let’s hear it. Hey Red and Link, this is Victor calling back. Um Rhett, I really appreciate you accepting my apology. Link, thanks for sticking up for me. Um I did look into it. I’m 2.1% Bosnian on 23 and me, so we’re good. Um, also Rhett, I don’t remember you explicitly saying that you had CO, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was an ass on the interwebs. So, I think we’re good now. All right. Love you guys. Bye. I don’t know if we’re good, Vic. I don’t know if we’re good now. Yeah, because he kind of like now accepted your apology, but then he’s now adding something where it’s like you were lying. You were stretching the truth. I Well, no, I was misremembering. If that’s the case, or he was. He seemed to put it all on you, though. Why wasn’t it equally potentially misremembered by both of you? So, the beef is back on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We’re gonna have to fight now. We’re gonna have to fight now, Victor. Uh, so okay, I’m trying to I mean I cannot remember. So I’m trying to go back to a time that I can’t remember to to pontificate about what might have happened. Maybe I knew that I had CO, but I did not want to say it because it was still that time where you were like, I don’t want to tell somebody I got it because I don’t want them to get unnecessarily scared. I’m outside. It’s probably not that big of a deal, but I don’t want to get too close. And then the middle ground ended up making me seem like a jerk. Mhm. But I feel like I would have said that the first time I told the story. I don’t even remember when you accepted his apology. So, how am I supposed to remember? I wasn’t even there for the other thing. You remember the episode not too long ago where I was correcting myself about Bosnia. I remember something about Bosnia. Well, I mischaracterized the war in Croatia. Yes. And I ended up apologizing to Bosnians everywhere. And then I Yeah. The apology episode. Yeah. expanded that to Brian Bosworth and other people who had Bosworth great Bosnian things in their name. That’s what he’s talking about. Okay. Next voice. I think he’s like I mean I just so you know one year one in one ear now the other. I just want to make sure some stuff stays around cuz he might call back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that the beast’s back on. Hi Britain link. My name’s Emma. I’m from Utah. Um my story takes place about seven years ago. my then boyfriend but now husband um was just going through a really hard time struggling with money, family, living situation, etc. And he was working mowing lawns and during one of his shifts he lost his key fob. And so he was just in some lawn, no way of finding it. Awful. And he’s not big on accepting help. And so what I did is the following day I typed out versus writing so he couldn’t recognize my handwriting his letter saying, “I’m an anonymous neighbor. I saw you lost your car key. Here’s some money to replace it. I wanted to help.” And I included that letter with some money on his car um on his car the next day. Now 7 years later, I still have not told him, but he and his family use this moment as like a huge thing. Like there is a higher power. the world will repay us. There is humanity. Like people are good. You get good coming back to you sort of thing. Like his mom talked about this in large groups in like a very spiritual way. And I still haven’t told him because I don’t know what this will do. Like this is one of his core beliefs that like the world is good. Will this destroy everything? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for your content. Bye. Well, hopefully he doesn’t listen to this podcast. Yeah, let’s assume he doesn’t the question doesn’t answer itself. I feel like here here’s my take at this point. If there’s anything um that can make you feel better about the world, even if it’s not true, maybe for now it’s okay. Now, now’s not the time to start. Now’s not the time to take the joy somebody’s joy away. You know what I mean? Truth is important. Not as important as I would hope that our nation would consider it to be, but it is important. I think that we will get back there at some point. Truth will win out in the end. In the meantime, tell yourself some lies to get through it. I I don’t think that this instance is the only reason that he and his entire family believe that if that something karmic, you know, if good will come back to you. It’s is it all based on this one thing or is it just the nice anecdote that they use and was it such a significant thing? I feel like maybe I missed an important part of that. How did how did they retold the story for years? How did the person the person that she was pretending to be in this fictitious scenario who found who knew how did she know? didn’t didn’t say enough because of the universe had told her. Is that No, I don’t. It was a neighbor a neighbor thing and I I heard you lost your key. Heard where? Well, maybe she was walking past. No, it wasn’t that or something. A nosy neighbor saw. Yeah. If I hear people talking out I I go I go on my balcony like this neighbor neighbor hear. I feel like I’d be going door to door and being like, I just wanted to say thank you. I know. No, if somebody does something anonymously, leave it lay. Leave it lay. But the I mean, you did something anonymously that was good. Does that I guess it takes some of the meaning away that someone that he didn’t know that well or at all was so generous. Well, what about someone that he knew and was dating that he ended up marrying did it? Well, but that’s not supernatural. But it wasn’t super He didn’t believe it was supernatural. I mean, I I know that they put sounds like she said that they would put spiritual weight on it, but it was it didn’t The story wasn’t told as if it was a miracle, but it was a like Jenna said, it was a neighbor. I’m a neighbor and I heard, you know. So it it’s not like, you know, we’re all going to be debunking a miracle. We’re all going to be okay because a neighbor people do good things. Yeah. People do good things. And if you’re good, good things will come back to you. Might have been the the uh That’s something to believe in. Extrapolation. That’s something to believe in. I mean, you got to be careful seven years in. I know you’ve had big fights, but this is one of those things that that might come out in a heat of passion. I was the one with the key fob. Yeah, it was my money. It was my letter. It was my typewriter. The world is horrible still. The belief that the world is good. I am good. Right. My theory, they keep bringing it up around her cuz they know it was her and they want her to admit it. Oh, seven seven years baiting her to come clean. They both They both are. Is she ever going to say anything about this? I will say, you talk about uh wanting to believe the world is a better place. I have found myself in um these corners of YouTube. I you you know I watch a lot of YouTube almost exclusively in the morning while working out. That’s what I’ve heard, right? And I realize that too many of my videos are just people talking thisformational stuff that sometimes I’m like, it’s not the first thing I want to put into my brain when I wake up. I don’t want to be like I wake up and go to class and work out at the same time. Like sometimes it’s a little too much education, right? Okay. And um boy, I wish I could remember the name of some of these channels. Um, but there somehow I watch one video that was like there are multiple channels that do something where it’ll just be like a profile of an older person, like a beautifully shot little vignette. I have to look this up. A beautifully shot little vignette of like an old person who lives alone and writes poetry. And it’s like it’ll just be like this person’s gonna we’re gonna spend a day with this person and they’re gonna like talk about what they’ve learned in their life and how so it’s not self-produced. No, it’s a it’s a channel where each one of them is a channel and I’m going to find one of these channels because I know I subscribe to them. I know I subscribe to them. Um let’s see. How do you go to your subscriptions here? Subscriptions. So, uh let’s see what we got here. I don’t really know how to use YouTube. I’ve only been doing it I’ve only been doing it for says the man who as long as this existed because they don’t put them out as often. You know what I’m saying? Like I bet you if I just go to home it’ll be there’ll be something that’s suggested in this because I’m getting I’m getting these things suggested to me at this point. But it’ll just be like a person like an older person. Okay, this is one. I don’t know who makes this. It’s just a channel called Reflections of Life. Million subscribers and like each video is just like how I live simply at 80 years old. The beauty of less what we gain when we stop chasing more. 800,000 views, you know, 12 minutes, 15 minutes long. Becoming myself. It took me 80 years. Life lessons I wish I knew earlier. Like it’s just not always old people, but a lot of times it is an old person. And it’s just through everything I’m still me. And it’s just this nice good human just being like, I’m just going to tell you about some things that I’ve learned. And again, it’s like it’s very well done. Huh. And there’s multiple channels that do stuff like this. Reflections of life. Reflections of life is one of them. Okay. And I have found myself just being like, you know what I’m going to do? because I like they’re like 20 minutes or whatever. Sometimes all I do is go down and just do a little like stretching and mobility. If I that’s all I got time for, I’m be like I’m not going to listen to some guy talk about some information. I’m definitely not going to like check in on the news. God forbid I would do that. Um I’m going to like listen to an old person talk about what they’ve learned and it’s just like the music is good and just it’s very very good. So I found myself going to that place. I don’t know how I got here. We were answering a question that was relevant. Nick, you still running? I know you’re not gonna be able to tell me how we got there. Keep running. Um, keep going. But you know how I got there. I recommend. Did we answer that question? Yes. Okay, good. Next voicemail. Hey, Ret Link. It’s Nathan. I’m not sure if you’ll remember me, but about eight years ago, I was on Good Mythical More for my Make a Wish. The episode was titled Toothpaste and Tarantula Smoothies. So, I just called to see how you guys were doing, let you know an update on how I’m doing. Uh, been cancer free for about four or five years now, and uh, living life. graduate in December from Grand Valley State University here in Michigan uh with a bachelor’s in legal studies. So, I plan to go into corporate compliance if Mythical ever needs anybody on the legal team. Hey, but yeah, I just called to see how you all were doing. We’re doing good. I mean, uh Nathan, right? Neither one of us have cancer, which is great. That’s right. And I’m glad you don’t either anymore. Yeah, that I mean, it feels great to get an update. We love having um Makea-Wish recipients come through on Good. It’s a highlight, man. And uh yeah, a lot of people find it’s there’s a misconception that if you get a make a wish that it is terminal, right? That’s what we thought. That’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes it is sometimes. And we’ve been honored to have um you know people wish recipients come through who that was their wish was to hang out with us and but it’s great to get this update. You’re going to be a you’re going into corporate law. Compliance, man. People got to comply. People got to comply. Corporations. Corporations have to comply. Yeah. Hey, corporations are people. Jenna, didn’t you see that Supreme Court decision? Wow. Corporations are people. How dare I? Uh, which it reminds me of another thing. Let’s just We’re going to do a little bit rabbit trails because I told you about this uh this book I was reading. Is a river alive? Yeah. And uh it’s by the same guy who wrote Underland. Uh which I can’t remember his name right now. I don’t want to. It’s Robert something I think. Um both great books, but Is a River Alive is about the movement of environmentalists, especially in like indigenous environmentalists in certain areas of the world uh who have like um indigenous religious views like animistic views where like the river was alive. Not just the river was a culmination of a combination of a bunch of things that are alive and just water that flows or whatever like the very technical like western definition. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s the it’s the sort of the legal push to get a a body of water to be considered a person and it’s kind of under the opaces of or the logic is well if we could do that with a corporation which is corporation is not a person a corporation is a concept but the corporation gets to do things and gains rights because it’s considered a person and a lot of times those rights are uh not great for people you know um What happens is if we can get a river to be considered alive and have its own rights, then you can’t just willy-nilly dam it up and do other things and pollute it and all this stuff. It’s a fascinating book and just thinking about that concept. Is a river alive? I think that’s the name of it. If you search that, it’ll come up. Okay. I recommend it. You recommend it all types of stuff. It just kind of makes you think a little bit outside the box. Okay. Thank you so much for that update. That’s very heartwarming and encouraging. Hi, written link. My name is Eva from Philadelphia. I’ve been listening to Ear Biscuits forever and I’m wondering how you two deal with things at work not going quite your way. I am a creative worker and I often struggle with projects not turning out the way that I had envisioned or making a mistake at work or something like that and keeping myself up at night about it. So, I’m curious how you grasp those things and how you work through those things because your job is incredibly creative and I think it’s something that everyone deals with regardless of what their job is like. So, thank you and goodbye. Thank you for the question. Uh, very thoughtful. I don’t know if it was a softball toss for us to discuss Wonder Hole season 2, but we will take that opportunity. What are you talking about, Link? We don’t make mistakes. Before I do, I will say I agree with what you’re saying that like whether it’s a creative field or not, I think when we look at all the different aspects of our job and the ones that on the surface are less creative like the CEO hat that we wear in running our company and it is a hat and there is just one and we share it business strategy and all that. We definitely experience this the concept of like hindsight being 2020. Why why didn’t we you there’s this temptation to beat ourselves up because something is so clear to us now. And I know that happens on a in a business sense because you’re it when you’re when you’re making business decisions, it tends to be very measurable and it’s and it gets a lot more stark that if we would have done something differently then it would mean this in terms of very measurable numbers. So I I don’t think we experience it across the board, not just with our creative projects. But I do think that currently we are talking about the questions that are being answered associated with Wonder Hole season 2. If you go back and listen to the episode we devoted to that before it came out. I do seem to remember that there were a lot of open questions in the way that we had constructed it. I mean, and and many of those were around not just how people who watch it will react to it, but also the experimental nature of the strategy to lean so hard into the titles and thumbnails being emulations of genres and seeing, if not, I’ll say it, hoping that it would the algorithm would cooperate with it and send it out to more people because it was in those genres or appeared to be in those genres. Now, at this point, I will say pretty much week over week, we’ve kind of lost a little momentum in the performance of Wonder Hole season 2. Um definitely across the first five episodes and you know YouTube gives you all of this measurements on the back end that if you create if you’re the creator of the video you can see where does this video rank at this particular time from release when compared to all the other videos out of 10 out of 10 the last nine videos. So 10 videos total. Yeah. How is it performing against all those the previous nine videos in the same amount of time? And that’s where I’m saying that the momentum has gone down, right? Um, and that’s information that we didn’t know. Um, and I’m tempted to say, well, or maybe I’m just being honest to say it feels discouraging because and then it, you know, there’s a temptation to secondguess the decision to do it. And then we start and I start saying things in my brain like, well, we never would know unless we tried and we wanted it to be seen by as many people as possible. And we had reason to believe that it would work, but we’d only know by trying and by committing fully to it. And I believe that we did commit fully to that strategy. We can now know for certain the answer that we were seeking. It’s just not the one I had hoped for. I agree. Um, so I think that there’s there was two parts to it, right? There was the what what were we trying to accomplish with it with this with season two and then what we were what were we hoping to accomplish in terms of reach and those were two different things and they were a little bit there was some overlap but like we kind of saw them as two different paths. Um, and I think that the lesson that we learned is that the marketing side of it, like the angle, like the the assumption that if we title and thumbnail this in a certain way, the the the algorithm will respond and then we can sort of trick people into watching something that just that didn’t work. And we can talk a little bit about like what we think we we’re learning about that. Do it. Uh, okay. Yeah. So, and this may seem obvious, like when I say it, you’d be like, “Well, of course.” I think broadly speaking, what we learned is that the algorithm is smarter than we thought it was, right? Because essentially what we did as you know is we took a viral genre uh video title and a thumbnail and based on season the two episodes of season one that performed the best being very one of them was episode one which was very similar to existing existing genres expensive flight and then the red versus blue 24 hours as red and blue which was also not exactly a genre not exactly the same title but it was a genre of video where you were two different colors. Those two episodes performed so much better than the four other ones that were just completely original experimental ideas. So, we said, “Well, let’s just do that strategy for every single video.” But what we ended up doing is we ended up picking titles and thumbnails that performed well on YouTube as a whole and that get tens to hundreds of millions of views, but they’re getting tens to hundreds of millions of views from children. Those genres are right. And a lot of people think that kids watch our videos, but our that’s actually not true. Like our number one demo is uh is adults by like by a long shot like 13 to 17 is like singledigit percentage for us like 3% or something like that. Um, so what we did is we created a piece of bait, the clickbait that draws in someone who actually just wants to wants to see us do wants to see the video that they clicked on. And then the subversion of expectations to be like, well, it’s something else. It’s a story. It’s like, well, I don’t want that. And then what you end up doing is every click that you draw in outside of the fan base, you’re immediately getting that person clicking off. And so the algorithm is is seeing, oh, this isn’t resulting in watch time, and so it doesn’t serve it to more people. So it doesn’t fall into the same stream as the videos that it’s parodying, if that makes sense. Which we knew is a possibility. It just I don’t I don’t I mean, we haven’t looked at the retention. So, I actually don’t you don’t see like a huge drop off at the moment that we take you down the wonder hole that we switch from what you think this video is about. Of course, I haven’t looked. I I don’t think there’s that big of a drop off. There’s not a huge drop off. So, but I think it is inconclusive. But right from the beginning, I’m saying right at the very beginning of the video, even before we go down the wonder hole, we’re not 20-year-old twins doing it. Like, we’re obviously like old guys. You know what I’m saying? There’s But but all of this, I mean, I don’t think we have clarity, but you start to come up with explanations and um they’re better. I mean, and you have this information. So when you’re just explaining what did happen because it happened, then it’s it’s different than guessing what’s regardless of what the specifics are cuz it because it could also be well the things that you guys are paring are not as popular as they were when you came up with it a year ago. They’re two you’re two years too later. There’s multiple whatever the specific reasons are. The strategy didn’t work. It didn’t help the strategy for sure. So, it turns out that uh if we wanted to do because the the we could have been like, well, let’s just do the things instead of doing scripted. Well, we’re going to we were going to do a scripted video because that was the point of the project was to do scripted and then try to disguise it as non-scripted so it would get caught in the algorithm. In retrospect, it if we had just said, “Okay, you want to do a scripted series, just do a scripted series,” knowing that it’s not there’s it’s not going to go viral. There’s it’s not going to get a million views per episode because that’s just not what that doesn’t really happen on YouTube and just be okay with that and then focus on what we were trying to do, which was develop the ability to kind of tell these kinds of stories. Yeah. I mean, I’m very proud of what it what we what we made. The strategy didn’t work. So, it’s like you just you isolate those two things. And I do think there’s nothing it, you know, not letting one thing taint the other thing. the fact that I’m very proud of what the episodes are and the experience of making them was very positive and all of the things that we wanted to learn that we talked about in the other episode. We absolutely learned those things and we’ll apply those things. us learning that the strategy didn’t work informs our strategy moving forward. But it’s extremely but the most valuable thing we’re taking forward is the craft stuff that’s a part of the actual videos. I think that’s what I’m so grateful for because we have that now we’re taking it forward. But I do it I mean I think back to answering your question caller there was you know once we started seeing that that was the that was the trajectory of it and we started to learn that strategy wasn’t working. It was even more of a reason to start to focus on what we were doing next. And I don’t, you know, we had already made the decision before season 2 came out that we weren’t going to automatically follow it up with a season 3. So, because we had made the decision that we wanted to do something else specifically that we’re not talking about yet, the next project, which we’re very excited about. And we did that because that’s what we want to do next. And we don’t want to keep try even if and we knew that even if the if the if the algorithm strategy worked, we didn’t want to immediately follow it up and just capitalize on it and do more of it because from a creative standpoint, it wasn’t the main thing we were trying to do. Um, that did make it easier to not hang so much on this thing and just say it’s going out there. this part of it is not really going to inform what we learn in in the strategy in the marketing strategy and all of that. We don’t need to learn as much about that for our next project, right? And that was it was nice that we were able to that that was just a byproduct of us already planning what we’re doing next. But I will say our I think the way that we instinctively reacted to uh the the subpar performance in our was we put even more focus on the next thing. Well, here we we’re already on to the next. Already on to the next to I think maybe almost to a fault. Like in the last meeting we had with the team, the Wonderhold team, it was a meeting about the next project, but we kind of we called an audible and said, “Hey, let’s take the first part ended up being the first half of this meeting and talk about how Wonder Hole is doing.” because I don’t know, you tell me, but I did feel like for me there was this temptation to not do that and just let’s let’s not talk about something that could be frustrating or disappointing. Let’s the performance of this thing. The conversation that we’re having now publicly we had with them in that team. The temptation was to just move on. And I think that I’m glad we didn’t do that even though the impulse was to do it. And I’m glad because, you know, I don’t I didn’t want the team to feel like we were more disappointed than we actually are. And I wanted them to know that we were just as disappointed as they are in the ways that were justified. And that it’s part of the shared experience. Just like the caller scene, disappointment when you when you when you’re when you’re go putting yourself out there with a creative endeavor or otherwise when you’re taking risks and you’re in and you’re really investing yourself and your passions into something. Um disappointment could be around the next corner, you know, and disappointment is a form of discovery. So, shunning it or ignoring it or just trying to like blast through that speed bump. I don’t know all the ways, but I do believe that it’s healthier. First of all, it’s healthier for your car to slow down to go over the speed bump. So, I’ll use that analogy. And then I think you might be able to see a few other things that you can take forward on the rest of your journey if you’re not just trying to blow through it. you know, and might hurt might hurt more. I don’t know, the analogy falls apart, but but I think ultimately you you um you actually learn more through failure than you do through success. That’s what they say. And um again, this is a seasonal season 2 is is legitimately a mixed bag for me. I’m not u I’m not saying this to try to save face. I’ve had we’ve had many many failures. The primary goal of season 2 was to figure out how we performed and I feel like there was a very significant jump in that part of the craft and a lot of people noticed it and talked about it and that felt good. The secondary thing was you know can we actually make it a relevant thing that people are talking about because it succeeds in numbers. No, that didn’t happen. Um, and I think that the the two questions that I would ask myself, anything is um, what happened the way that I had hoped. Maybe that’s nothing. Sometimes it might be nothing. But if it’s anything, how do I celebrate that? And how do I recognize that? And how do I have like patience and grace with myself? And how can I encourage myself and the other people who worked on this? And so that’s what we did. We were like it connected in the way that we wanted it to connect from a story standpoint. Mission accomplished team us like lot of lot of credit due to us and the team for making that happen. Like we should celebrate that strategy miscalculation and that strategy came from us. Like we pushed hard to say like let’s make it a simple thing where we take these thumbnail. So that didn’t work and like you said we can’t immediately take that and apply it to the next thing because the next thing doesn’t it’s so different. Um but now we know that right we now we now we know and that it’s all honestly it’s something that we can take into every we do so much on this platform on YouTube with good mythical morning and I think that that to me it’s like you can’t fool the algorithm. Don’t try to fool the algorithm. The algorithm is designed to figure out who wants to watch something and to for those people to find it and to watch it. And if you try if you literally try to make something live and die by some trick that you’re pulling on the algorithm, chances are it will die. Chances are it won’t work because if the algorithm can be tricked that easily, then it wouldn’t be a very good algorithm. and you know that this has there’s so much information going into this algorithm that it’s got to be pretty damn sophisticated. You’re really kissing the algorithm’s butt right now. Um and that’s so it’s like okay maybe we thought we thought too highly of ourselves in that way thinking that we can slide one through because we thought we had we had limited anecdotal evidence to suggest that we we could do it right. Uh and now it’s just like not going to try that again. Now, from here on out, it’s like what we do will be the the title and the thumbnail is the best indication of the thing that you’re actually getting because the expectations set by the title and the thumbnail should be paid off by the video, which again, this is like YouTube 101. Yeah. So, uh, but again, we thought that we were kind of tying into that. So, I mean, I think the answer to the question is like, is there something that can be celebrated? If so, celebrate it. Is there something that can be learned? If so, learn it. And don’t try to explain it away. Like, we’re trying to understand it so we can learn the right lesson, but we’re not trying to explain it away and be like, well, no, actually, it’s fine. It’s not a failure because you know what? It still gets more views than most shows on cable, you know, whatever. Like, we could rationalize things like that. Um, but it’s definitive that the strategy didn’t work in the way that we were hoping. Why did that happen? And that’s ultimately a more valuable lesson between those two things. This is what worked. This is what didn’t work. The thing that didn’t work is usually there’s more information there that you can take to the next thing to something else. Not necessarily the very next project, but to add it to your knowledge bank. Thanks for the question. I’m I’m so glad we talked about that. I mean, I actually do feel I am glad we talked about it, you know, cuz it’s like, well, we did this whole episode where we’re like, there’s all these questions. Let’s see what happens. And I do like closing the loop on it that oh, okay, this is what happened. Thank you for enjoying Wonder Hole if you did. Um, got a lot of constructive feedback uh through the comments as well. You know, it was an experience that uh elicited response and I like that part of it, too. Well, uh, next week is not only another episode, but it’s going to be an interesting one. Um, so just if you if if you stuck around this long in this episode, you’re still running, make sure to come back for the next one because we got some stuff to talk about. Yes, we do. We do. Hey, I was just watching you guys on Bobby Lee and I couldn’t believe you guys don’t know how to describe what good Mythical Morning is. And I tell my friends, it’s a game show where the contestants are always the same, but the game is always changing. Maybe that helps. Bye. Good Mythical Evening is blasting off October 23rd at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Pacific. Get your tickets now at good mythicaling.com.